Pioneer released its first Blu-Ray recorder/reader for PCs and Macs some time ago. I didn’t want to be the first to write about this new technology, because Blu-Ray discs were very hard to come by and even today, it’s hard to find the more or less costly media that is required to use the Blu-Ray writer for what it is meant to do. Pioneer managed to send me a test unit a couple of weeks ago, complete with a TDK recordable and rewritable disc. I also received such media from my favourite brand, Verbatim. Roxio’s Blu-Ray system plug-in for Mac OS X (comes with Toast 8) was installed, and I was all set to go.
An external disk drive with 3 connection interfaces (FireWire 400, 800, and USB 2), room to spare and the silence that goes with video and audio production. What more can you want? Good software perhaps? Or a ruggerised drive enclosure in silicon rubber that protects the disks inside against (some) shock? The OneTouch III Turbo 1.5TB has it all.
This disk tandem disk drive looks good, in its industrial design. It has power management built in, and the ventilator makes almost no noise --the noise that it did make on a particularly warm day, is a sort of rumbling, very deep and low bass sound. There are of course two disks inside the enclosure --two Seagate disks of 750 GB each. The OneTouch III Turbo has a large bright white LED button on its front bezel. This button can activate a program such as Retrospect or any other application you care to start when pushing this button.
The Freecom Data Tank has won the iF Award, one of the world’s most prestigious design awards. The Data Tank is an aluminium box with black plastic front and back. It carries two hard drives --in my test version there were two 250GB disks, for a total of 500GB. The Data Tank also has a ventilator to keep things cool, software to change the device’s configuration, and an encryption system that enables you to keep data secure. It connects to the computer by FireWire 800, FireWire 400, or USB 2.
Pioneer recently released two new DVD-burners: the DVR-112 and DVR-112D. The first one also writes and reads DVD-RAM discs. Both devices are extremely fast and burn DVDs with up to 18x speed, if the media will allow it. I tested them both with Verbatim 16x DVD-R, DVD-R, Verbatim DVD-RAM 5x, and Dual and Double Layer DVDs.
First thing that struck me with the DVR-112 was that it actually reads DVD-RAM discs faster than the only other drive I’ve ever tested DVD-RAM with: the Sony DRX-820UL. The latter takes several minutes before even recognizing there is a DVD-RAM disc in the drive. The Pioneer DVR-112 immediately recognizes the disc and mounts it or hands it off to the OS for Initialisation with Disk Utility.
In the late 19th century, a gentleman couldn’t be seen without his pocket watch. In the early 21st century, a gentleman can’t be seen without his Seagate Pocket Hard Drive. This disc-shaped USB 2.0 device is a bit thicker than a pocket watch, but its size is comparable.
The Seagate Pocket Hard Drive can contain 100 hours of digital music, and 1920 digital photos. The 6.0 GB version that I got, anyway. The same device exists in an 8.0 GB version as well. The Pocket Hard Drive has a nifty USB-cable tuck-away mechanism, and a very large blue LED in the centre, that lights up when the disk is in use.
Maxtor, or rather Seagate, is selling the OneTouch III with FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 as a video storage solution. The external 500GB drive that I received comes with Retrospect Express and control centre software. The Maxtor OneTouch III with FireWire 800 that I originally wanted to review was not available in the country where I live. According to Seagate, not all models are made available in all countries. Some of them can only be purchased in what Seagate describes as “Tier 1” countries.
So, there I was, stuck with a FireWire 400 / USB 2.0 device that is considered to be slow in these FireWire 800 and eSATA times. Nevertheless, the drive is capable of a sustained throughput of 36 MB per second with files of 10 MB and even 37 MB per second with files of 100 MB in size.
LaCie has just announced its Blu-Ray disc burner with support for Mac OS X, Windows XP and Vista. The burner is a d2 aluminium device with Panasonic’s Blu-Ray writer inside. And how will you burn those Blu-Ray discs, you ask? With Toast 8 Titanium, of course! But what if you just want to burn a CD or DVD, and have some say over the result, with disc spanning, cataloguing and some gimmicks thrown in for good measure? In that case, you can also buy Disco.
SmileOnMyMac released DiscLabel 4, their CD/DVD labelling software. DiscLabel 4 has become a well-designed system for creating CD/DVD labels, and designing the CD/DVD packaging. The new features give the program the edge over the competition.
Verbatim is the first storage manufacturer to launch dual-layer DVD-R with 8x write speed and storage capacity of 8.5GB data, music or film.
I installed Seagate’s Barracuda 7200.10 750 GB hard disk a month ago in my system. The disk is quiet, extremely fast and offers huge data storage capacity. If you dream of storage media at night, this is the disk for you.
WiebeTech’s SilverSATA range of external SATA II products is a success story in its own right. SilverSATA II and upward promise the benefits of hardware-based RAID 0 or 1 in a small form factor with much control over what you put inside and what is going on in there.
The WiebeTech ToughTech hard disk drive enclosure is an aluminium case with rounded corners, but no fan. I was able to test an eSATA version with a 250 GB disk already included.
Page 2 of 3 pages < 1 2 3 >
